


Unalloyed Satisfaction

by enygmatic



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dubious Morality, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, psychiatric malpractice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 06:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8091487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enygmatic/pseuds/enygmatic
Summary: A ficlet set shortly before the episode "Entree" in Season One. While Abel Gideon is still in his capable hands, Frederick Chilton reaches out to Tattlecrime journalist Freedie Lounds for a groundbreaking "leak" -- one regarding the infamous Chesapeake Ripper. Chilton claims that Abel Gideon, the man he has psychically driven into an identity crisis, was the Chesapeake Ripper all along, and he had the proof ready for publication. Stuck between the dilemma of ethical behavior and personal glory, Lounds and Chilton both inevitably make the same decision that irrevocably thrusts them into Hannibal Lecter's world: do bad to be great.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Story by me/tumblr user sphinxingintongues. Art by tumblr user ponderosa121.

Art by [Ponderosa121](http://ponderosa121.tumblr.com/) and story by [Sphinxingintongues](http://sphinxingintongues.tumblr.com/). Those are our respective tumblr accounts. 

\--- *

“And do you remember? What the census taker had done to you? Do you recall the heat of your rage?” Frederick Chilton, lounging back in his leather padded throne, took his time with the syllables spoken. They were to be enjoyed, slowly, sipped upon like a pinot noir. Fragrant, citrus moments with summer fruit undertones. Across from him sat Abel Gideon, incarcerated mass murderer. His favorite pet project. His soon-to-be Ripper.

“Something… Numerically offensive. You know the type, all paint by numbers and thinking inside their checked little boxes,” replied Gideon, the words empty in his mouth, wisped like methane. He kept his eyes averted from Chilton’s magnetic gaze, his focus instead consumed by the tag-along IV bad and its slender tubing stuck into his immobile arm, both his wrists handcuffed to their respective chair arm, and that drip- _drip-_ dripping clear liquid sinking into his vein by the droplets. Chilton had been avoidant about what was in that IV bag, even as he begged for Gideon’s signed consent to be subjected to it. But Gideon had relented; consent was only a mirage in Chilton’s sanitized kingdom. He knew how vicious an ambitious princeling could get, how presumptuous and bratty. With any crown came inevitable thorns.

“Didn’t make too much of a muss when I took his…” Gideon blinked, and instinctively glanced at Chilton.

“His liver,” murmured the psychiatrist. His tone carried urgency; it was crucial that Gideon learn the details of the crimes he would adopt. Only when the patient's mind was convinced of this force-fed testimony would Chilton feel confident enough to pursue his next target. Carefully, deliberately, Chilton left his seat, walked over to Gideon, and breached the narrowed gap between them to stroke the stray bangs weighing heavy with sweat against Gideon's forehead. Touch was a form of possession, and Chilton made his claim evident as he brushed back those bangs into place.

“Right, right. The liver. Fellow was a cagey son of a bitch -- kind of like you, Frederick.”

Chilton only raised an eyebrow in response. Always the brow, thought Gideon, and never his voice. Easy to get a rise out of expression, but never that soft and measured hum of vocal chords. Shifting uncomfortably, Gideon considered complaining about _something_ , anything to distract from the casual compliance his mind wanted to slip into. The more that Chilton caressed his flesh, the more the tension left his brain. Dangerous, fretful. A sudden thought: the loose-fitting and ill-favored blue prison jumpsuit. That was a favorite topic, easy carrion to peck at. He had often voiced his preference for something with significantly more flair, if only in part because the bemoaning annoyed Chilton. Between the duties of reading his correspondence like a good secretary and tending to his textile disputes like an adequate seamstress, Gideon felt his power to diminish Chilton’s polished authority like a thumb rubbing dirt onto a stone. It was therapeutic. And he so deeply needed a little therapy right now, with Chilton's manicured hand stroking his cheek, those long and unsullied fingers prodding at his throat. Gideon squirmed in his chair, his heartbeat picking up pace -- and the good doctor took notice. A slow, sharp smile cut over Chilton's lips. It was the grin of a jackal catching sight of rabbit tail, and Gideon resented how his groin began to throb.

The bastard knew what he was doing. Frederick had to have endured a lot of practice to be this good, he thought as Chilton smoothed down Gideon's pectoral muscles, that crafty thumb and forefinger pinching hidden nipple. They both knew this was a game of dominance, and the chess pieces were body parts. Gideon wondered, however, how long it would be until Chilton's body became the new chessboard, perhaps giving his own a well-earned reprieve. As Chilton leaned forward to whisper _be a good boy_ in his ear, Gideon closed his eyes and swallowed. Months of this kind of training paired with ample _amobarbital_ dosages had loosened his lips along with his loins, and now getting him to heel was nothing more than a parlor trick. That warm breath, those subtle commands. His muscles reacted to memory, and Gideon moaned.

Chilton, clearly satisfied with the result, took a step back. With his head tilted and rogue forefinger now tapping his lower lip, he considered Gideon as one might a science experiment. _Evolving_. Progressing as expected. Exceptional work. He turned back to his desk and chair, moving to sit down again, his spine already fitted to his throne and his mouth already eager to suck on one of those gold pens he was so accustomed to twirling in his fingers and licking with his tongue while in session.

“I want to revisit your role as, ah, fashion dictator,” said Gideon. He lifted his other arm, raising it as far as he could reach until the metal shackles he wore strained his effort. “Doesn’t need to be a corset, Frederick, all I’m asking for is a little form to my figure. It’s almost like you _want_ me to hid a shiv beneath the fabric. Wouldn't that be a scandal.”

Almost, indeed. Gideon was a cautious creature our of habit, his most notable emotional outburst being a concise mass murdering of his wife and in-laws -- nothing really unexpected of a man who had spent four decades repressing a lot of anger until it broiled his very soul. So the fact that he was so incisively challenging Chilton's motivations (and he was, with uncanny insight), rather startled the psychiatrist. Months of conditioning, hours upon hours of electrotherapy and sensory deprivation, and Gideon still had the gall to slyly glance at a spade as if he saw it for what it was.

Chilton’s expression soured at the insinuation, his mouth twisting downwards like an unpleasantly peeled rind. Little displays of defiance weren't unusual for Abel Gideon, but this? It cut a little too close to the marrow. Clearly Chilton hadn't been as thorough with his science experiment as he had so smugly assumed moments ago. Placing down the gold pen, Chilton kept his static stare deadlocked onto Gideon as he once more rose from his chair. This time was slower, more authoritarian. This was the barometric pressure taking a deep breath before the storm. Hands folded behind his back, he strolled almost leisurely over to his captive man, looking down his nose at him with the quiet delight of unspoken superiority. After all, how better to measure a man than his capacity to walk out of the BSHCI? He could walk all he wanted.

Gideon was still locked to a chair.

"Do you need to know what I want?" He placed one hand each on Gideon's paralleled wrists, digging in his palms for a pressurized point. He didn't break his gaze with Gideon, those imploring green eyes only superficially gentle -- cashmere over steel. There was something barbed beneath his genteel quirks and dry observations, something that forced Gideon to stare back at him.

“I want you to focus, Abel,” said Chilton. He stood upright sharply and walked a crescent next to Gideon now, his double-breasted suit caught in Gideon’s peripheral vision. Constant movement, surely a tactic. “This is important. Abel.”

Those damn fingers, silken and so precise, caressed against Gideon’s once more cheek, this time from behind. Positive reinforcement. He cupped Gideon's lower jaw, snaking his fingertips from back to chin, and leaned in to lightly kiss the top of Gideon's head. A thumbnail cut lightly into the patient’s lower lip, a little brutal fang, as if to chastise the man. Gideon couldn’t flinch; the chemical mixture dripping into his bloodstream had profound effect -- and that made the stiff reaction between his legs all the more shocking as it twitched in yearning. It wasn’t quite a paralysis what Gideon felt, it was more a reluctance of his own nervous system. A reluctance to react. He knew he was soundly Chilton’s clay to rub, he was Chilton's statue to erect.

The tension building against his thighs was just more evidence to the fact. Gideon took a couple deep breaths, willing himself to relax the hungering straining he felt. The man had only needles and serums and polyester straitjackets to touch, and Chilton damn well knew that when his sly fingers rubbed and stroked.

“That is what I want,” repeated Chilton. The metronome beat his tongue delivered proved hypnotic. “Because you and I have the same goal, don’t we? You and I. Need. You to remember your true identity.”

The Chesapeake Ripper. Yes.

Abel Gideon closed his eyes as he felt Chilton’s hand now stroked through the thick locks of his hair along his crown, moving in a circular motion, those viper fingernails only resting to cup the back of his skull. It was almost an adoring sensation, and nearly tender in its silent possession. Gideon knew why Chilton liked to have their sessions in his private office -- it was the only room that Chilton hadn’t wired up to the hospital’s surveillance system. Who had it been -- Matthew Brown? -- The wiry orderly with those small, furtive eyes. Chilton had coaxed him into every nook with the closed circuit, every corner of the snake’s pit watched in a consistent manner, save for one. That exception had been cultivated with an audio recording schematic intended for Chilton’s ears only. His most private of sessions, his utmost precious and dear.

Gideon knotted his brow, a low whimper rising from the back of his throat as Chilton’s soft hand rubbed down his throat to his chest, then stroked over his abdomen. His sole recourse, his mental rebellion, was to annotate the organs that Chilton glided over, flesh groping flesh. Fingertips prodding hip bone. The curve of a palm concave against his groin, pressing, squeezing. This game again.

“Prepping for the blood pressure gauge?” The quip came as a slur of words, probably less witty with the vowels slushed together, and Gideon could feel the flush on his face, the temperature of his own humiliation. Chilton was fond of using blood pressure gauges in inappropriate ways.

"Deflection techniques," murmured Chilton. His hands slipped down Gideon's back, pressing against the muscles as if to transcribe every twitch of sinew. "Seems a little exhausted, coming from you. Don't you think so? I'd rather move on... Time to acknowledge who you really are, Abel. Who you have always been."

With Chilton's fingers reaching Gideon's lower back, now his intergluteal cleft, with only a thin and baggy blue jumpsuit keeping Chilton from _inside_ of Gideon, the patient could do little but nod. It was such a sweet siren's song, such a relief to hear how extraordinary he was: much more than a mass murderer, indeed a serial killer. Peerless, unmatched, the pristine words that Chilton had whispered in his ear.

Drip-drip-dripping, snake venom to poison his mind.

"You maintained such a phenomenal pattern, _historical_ really. It must be something of a relief to have those memories trickling back to you. It must be so meaningful." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, a volume that demanded intimacy. "You're astounding, Abel. And I want to hear you admit how astounding you truly are," continued Chilton. He leaned over the sitting Gideon, his chin resting on the shoulder and his hands stroking up and down Gideon's thighs. Up and down, exterior and interior, the heat of flesh warming and warming. The IV, stranded opposite of Chilton, continued its mind-muddling work.

"Abel Gideon, the Chesapeake Ripper. I've finally found you."

\---

“Oh. Wow.” Freddie Lounds, swathed in a neon green peacoat cut from giraffe print, looked over the brim of her evening margarita with enough skepticism in her gaze to salt the rim. Her sardonic exclamation found a bulls eye in one self-conscious man dressed in a tan trench coat, dark brown oxfords, and sporting a pair of designer sunglasses. Inside a bar. At night.

“Doctor Chilton, I presume?”

Chilton did a double-take, and Freddie’s attitude of his own wardrobe was soon mirrored in the doctor’s features. Reflections of a heinous kind. He grimaced, rolled his eyes, and then slowly peeled off the sunglasses from his face, folding and pocketing them with a heavily-ringed hand.

“I had requested that you adhere to the code names,” replied Chilton, somewhat stiffly. He shot a longing look towards the waiter, his mind drifting to the promise of a scotch. _The code names_ , she almost choked on a scoff.

“With all implied due respect, Doctor Chilton, but Thorndike? You gave me Thorndike to work with. Wouldn’t even give that name to a dying cactus, it's a boring name.”

“One of the fathers of Behaviorism,” snapped Chilton. “A perfectly appropriate alias!”

“Neither subtle nor sexy. But I suppose 'Watson' has unintended literary allusions.” Freddie's eyes widened at her own jest, a smirk sharper than Chilton's usual now angled right beneath her nose.

“To illustrate your point: I am no one’s sidekick.”

No _shit_ , Sherlock, she thought, but sheer impatience held her tongue. Guy didn’t even have a friend to warn him against that walking cliché of a trench coat, obviously there was no dynamic duo at play here.

“But you do have a scoop.” Lounds humored very little diversion when a story was afoot (even if it was admittedly a _bit_ fun with this pretentious man) and she wanted the jugular displayed. Chilton had contacted her, out of the blue, with a hell of a tease: instead of inexplicably still on the lam, the infamous Chesapeake Ripper had actually been institutionalized at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for years. Years? _Really_. A twist so savory, that even now just thinking about how Chilton had strung the narrative in his hushed tones over that mysterious payphone call (imagine!) had her mouth watering. Freddie’s journalistic anticipation calloused no expression on her face, however -- her composure was legendary. A tilt of her head, a hardened stare with those pale blue eyes, and there was no informational thicket that she couldn’t penetrate.

“I do.” Chilton curled the words on his tongue, pulling them like reins. “Something I’ll attend to once I have a drink.”

The harried aura he invoked upon his dramatic entrance was something of a ruse; Chilton thrived in the midst of theatrics, and the appearance of stress could heighten a performance. It was why he agreed when Freddie had insisted they meet in person, why he abandoned the temptation of sending an emissary -- he deserved the glory, as the man who had discovered the Chesapeake Ripper in Abel Gideon. He was the most Promethean of men, and he was willing to share that fire with Freddie Lounds. He had read _Tattlecrime_ , he had determined that she was innovated in her stylistic journalism, her intrepid flair. But perhaps most importantly, he knew that she would not question his tactics or methodology, she would disregard how Gideon had become the Ripper. The firework of a story here was simply that Gideon _was_ , and not that he was made. Chilton had his heart set on a whiskey neat (an esteemed and classical choice if he did say so himself), and he waited for Freddie to place her own fresh order. It would be suspicious, he argued, if they _weren't_ drinking in a bar after all. 

"So," said Chilton, drink in attendance. "This is ultimately a story of repression. Abel Gideon, as you well know, _did_ murder his wife and her family during Thanksgiving two years past. That was a tragic and wholly chaotic incident, brutal and uncharacteristic. Nothing like his Ripper killings."

"Nothing at all." Freddie kept the rim of her martini against her lower lip, her expression drawn into it. Her eyes flashed at Chilton only when she spoke again. "I might say the Thanksgiving mass murder was in absolute opposition to the Ripper's hunts."

"Traumatic events often cause suffers to suppress, even rewrite, old behaviors. Something critical and unfortunate snapped in Abel Gideon that night, something that rewired his Ripper tendencies -- at least, for the meanwhile." A light shrug followed, teasing and tantalizing. "But as I administer treatment to Gideon, he is slowly manifesting memories of his prior identity. I cannot say that he will always be isolated from Ripper-associated cognitive patterns."

Freddie's eyebrow arched at that, the meaning not wholly escaping her.

"Is that an analysis, Doctor Chilton," she began. "Or a promise?"

Chilton only smirked in response. "Next question."

"Why _Tattlecrime_?" Lounds set down her second drink, not a wink of buzz littering her expression.  Unreadable, focused, forward -- she had the scent. "Because you thought I wouldn't be inclined to fact check, is that it?"

"That sounds more like a personal referendum," mused Chilton. His soft, measured pace never lost step. Of course, that was precisely the reason, as Chilton cringed to consider the gaping wound a _thorough_ psychiatric investigation might puncture. While he had confidence in his psychic driving technique, and while Gideon was responsive to his more unorthodox treatment, Chilton nevertheless calculated the desirable impact of public opinion. He wanted the spectacle, he wanted tongues wagging. Despite the high horse that the American Psychiatric Association rode upon, they were just as susceptible (if not _more_ ) to riot and revelation -- once an idea was made popular, it was all the more difficult to dislodge. Chilton wanted that acclaim. He wanted it done this way. If he hadn't succeeded in finding the true Chesapeake Ripper those two years prior, then he would triumph in creating one. Necessity dictated as much. And once the people had a name to their monster -- finally -- who was going to question the emperor's clothing? What possible naysayer could be heard above the roar of a satisfying conclusion?

Chilton tilted his chin towards his chest, his eyes widening for effect. The very image of guileless sincerity. "Because you need this as much as I do." 

Like slamming a hammer against a nail.

"Your readership has been starving for a capstone, Ms. Lounds. A masterpiece to best represent where the FBI had failed us, had failed Baltimore. Everyone loves a dark horse charging first to the finish line, don't they?"

Lounds blinked and pursued her lips. The only cracking in her marbled poker face.

"We have the same goals in mind," said Chilton. "We both want the greater world to understand, don't we?"

Well, she thought. He wasn't _wrong_. Freddie Lounds had sparked her career selling false hopes on a niche scale, but what about something that could really make a ruckus? Something that would put her name in a headline other than _nuisance_?

"I would retain the sole rights to the exposé, and monetary outcome, if any other publications were to circulate the story?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way," replied Chilton, smooth and charming. And easy negotiation thus far. Chilton felt his shoulder relax a little, the mounting tension of this crucial performance now easing out of him. He knew he had chosen well with Freddie Lounds, he figured she would be sooner wooed by the glitz of meteoric regard than to question the details of his methods. His whiskey met smiling lips.

"So level with me, doctor. Is he the Chesapeake Ripper, or not?"

Chilton's still smiling lips, now akin to a frozen rigor mortis, didn't part to taste that whiskey. Tension returned.

"Because the way I see it," she continued. "If Abel Gideon only _thinks_ he is the Ripper..."

"He is. The Ripper. He knows he is the Ripper." Chilton could easily rationalize the undercurrent lie away; so much hinged on the state of _being_ , and if Gideon became the Ripper through the public's eyes, then he was just as good as the authentic persona. Abel Gideon would be known as the Chesapeake Ripper, historically, and Frederick Chilton would be the man who discovered the truth -- it was a clean and systematic redemption from his prior failure to catch the Ripper. It simply made so much sense, and it was so cleanly executed; such was the inherent beauty to a vulnerable Dissociative Identity Disorder. Gideon had all the right stuff to mold.

"But," insisted Freddie. "Hypothetically. If he is _not,_ and the true Ripper starts ripping again. What then, Doctor Chilton? How will you explain that away?"

"A copy cat." Chilton brandished the answer like a newly whetted sword. The possibility of the actual Chesapeake Ripper's second coming, if indeed he was even still alive, mattered little to the grander scheme of things. Chilton had already thought of an elegant solution, and he was more than eager to persuade Freddie of the fact. "We call any following crimes the work of a copy cat. It is hardly unprecedented, after all, the sheer fascination surrounding the Ripper could easily inspired the unstable among us. What with the media attention this will garner, the healing scabs of the victims' family members scratched raw again -- it is enough to stimulate the cockles of any sadistic psychopath."

Freddie held his gaze for a couple seconds more, her pinched mouth illustrating the intensity of her scour. After what felt like crawling minutes to Chilton, she finally snapped a searing smile and raised her glass towards him.

"Perfect. You know, Doctor Chilton, I really think we can make believers out of the people. Here's to a clandestine partnership."

"Hah... Yes. Right, highly inconspicuous toast," said Chilton, clearing his throat. He had thought that he had lost her in that sinister and frail moment, and his frayed nerves needed that moment to recuperate. Raising his own glass in kind to match her toast, begrudging the fact that his drink had once more been stolen from his lips, Chilton allowed himself to feel another tingle of triumph. "Here's to us. To our mutual ascension in our respective professions, our achievements. And -- of course, here's to Abel Gideon. The Chesapeake Ripper."


End file.
